Based on the SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 12 Service Pack (SP) 3 enterprise-ready operating system. The openSUSE team has unveiled a new version of openSUSE’s Leap edition. The new version, openSUSE Leap 42.3, is a conservative update to the Leap series, introducing mostly minor fixed and package updates. “The release of Leap 42.3 provides adopters a reliable server operating system for deploying IT services in physical, virtual or cloud environments. Leap’s third edition of the 42 series has more than 10,000 packages and offers stability-minded users a refresh and hardware enablement release. The release is powered by the same Linux 4.4 Long-Term-Support (LTS) kernel found in the previous Leap edition. Leap 42.3 continues to use KDE’s Long-Term-Support release 5.8 as the default desktop selection while also offering GNOME 3.20, the same as used by SUSE Linux Enterprise. A variety of additional desktops is available in the installer through the newly designed desktop selection.“

Feb 24, 2017. TrueOS is a rolling release operating system based on FreeBSD. The TrueOS team has released a new snapshot of the operating system’s Desktop and Server editions. The new snapshot includes several bug fixes, a few new services and package updates. TrueOS 2017-02-22 also includes support for automounting devices and a new jail management utility: “Automounting – This new feature allows auto-detection and mounting of inserted USB devices. It also automatically unmounts USB devices when the user ceases accessing the device. See the blog post on automounting for more details about this useful new feature. New jail utilities jbootstrap (requires being run once to fetch base packages), jinit, and jdestroy are available. These support OpenRC development and add other functionality. See the blog post on these new jail utilities for more details.“

Creating a bootable USB key using a Un*x-like system:
The command would likely be, under TrueOS/PCBSD:
dd if=YourTrueOS.img of=/dev/da0 bs=1m
where da0 is the device and number. You can find the correct device number
by checking dmesg(8) when inserting the media.

11 November 2016 – Oracle has announced the release of a new version of Oracle Linux. The new version, Oracle Linux 7.3, represents an incremental update to the company’s 7.x series. The new version supports booting on UEFI-enabled computers and will run on machines with Secure Boot turned on. Oracle Linux provides two flavours of the Linux kernel: Oracle’s Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) and a Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK). “The Oracle Linux and Virtualization team is pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux 7 Update 3 for x86-64 servers. Users with a support subscription can download ISOs from My Oracle Support. ISO installation images can also be downloaded from Oracle Software Delivery Cloud. Individual RPM packages for Oracle Linux 7 Update 3 are available on the public yum server and the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN). This is the first Oracle Linux 7 ISO to include UEK Release 4 (UEK R4).“

Kris Moore has announced the launch of a new stable PC-BSD release. The project’s latest version, PC-BSD 10.3, is intended to be the final release in the project’s 10.x branch and is based on FreeBSD 10.3. PC-BSD 10.3 uses the FreeBSD boot loader with GRUB offered as an optional alternative. UEFI support has been improved in the system installer and the operating system ships with Lumina 0.8.8 as one of the available desktop environments. “The PC-BSD team is pleased to announce the availability of 10.3-RELEASE! This is currently planned to be the last maintenance release in the 10.X series, and we are currently working hard on the upcoming 11.0. A very special thanks to all the developers, QA, translation and documentation teams for helping to make this release possible.” PC-BSD is available in two editions, the desktop edition and the TrueOS edition for servers.

Oracle has announced the release of Oracle Linux 7.2. Oracle Linux is built from Red Hat Enterprise Linux source code and is designed to be binary compatible with Red Hat’s product. Oracle Linux 7.2 ships with two kernels, a “Red Hat Compatible Kernel” and Oracle’s “Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel”, and by default the latter is booted. “We’re happy to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux 7 Update 2, the second update release for Oracle Linux 7. You can find the individual RPM packages on the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) and the Oracle Linux Yum Server and ISO installation images are available for download from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud. Oracle Linux 7 Update 2 ships with the following kernel packages: Red Hat Compatible Kernel (kernel-3.10.0-327.el7) for x86-64; Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) Release 3 (kernel-uek-3.8.13-98.6.1.el7uek) for x86-64. By default, both the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel and the Red Hat Compatible Kernel are installed and the system boots the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel.“

Dru Lavigne has announced the launch of PC-BSD 10.2. The PC-BSD project is based on FreeBSD and offers users pre-configured desktop environments, ZFS on root and graphical system administration utilities. The new release includes several bug fixes and a number of new features, including a CD-sized network installation disc. “The PC-BSD team is pleased to announce the availability of 10.2-RELEASE! A very special thanks to all the developers, QA, and documentation teams for helping to make this release possible. PC-BSD 10.2 Notable Changes: FreeBSD 10.2-RELEASE base system; Many bug fixes and enhancements to installer to dual-boot setups; New CD-sized network installation media, with wifi Configuration via GUI; Switched to `iocage’ for jail management backend; Disk Manager GUI now available via installer GUI; Bug-fixes and improvements to Life-Preserver replications; Improved localization options for login manager…“

Douglas DeMaio has announced the availability of a test release of the openSUSE distribution’s new Leap product branch. The test release, called openSUSE Leap 42.1 Milestone 1, is in the early stages of its development and is intended for alpha testers and people curious as to what openSUSE has planned for the Leap series. Richard Brown, Chairman of the openSUSE Board, says Leap will provide a middle road between SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE’s rolling Tumbleweed branch. “As Tumbleweed keeps rolling with the latest features and subsystems, Leap will fill the gap between the longevity of a SLE core and the innovation related to Tumbleweed. The quality and environmental care Tumbleweed provides with its development model should quickly translate to a top-quality distribution for Linux users, sysadmins and developers. The milestone was moving forward with a 3 series Linux Kernel, but the Long-Term Support 4.1 Kernel, which enhances ext4 file-system encryption and power improvements for both ARM and x86 devices, was needed for the release of the first milestone. The new Kernel was practically flawless when added to the next build, which had some minor errors.“